"The Unseen" Speaks to B K

How to Join	Member's Area	Private Library	Search	Sanctuary		Login
Main Forums	Discussion	Tech Talk	Mature Content	Archives	A home without a wall, Our haven without ends, A circle we all call Our Family of Friends!

Bob K
Member Elite

since 2007-11-03

Posts 4208

0 posted 2008-06-23 12:58 PM

"The Unseen" Speaks to B K

Having left them out overnight on the plank
I use for a desk, pinned to the surface
With an old Barlow knife, I’m not surprised
To find them nibbled around the edges.
The deer are hungry this time of year.
They’re willing to push into town to eat
The leaves and flowers off the plants
In the side yard. I’ll have to ask my patient
Elaine to remind me of the plant names.
The next door neighbors hung out half a dozen
Cut out panty hose legs, each with a bar
Of Cashmere Bouquet soap, which is supposed
To drive the critters away. It didn’t work.
After the first rain, I think the rabbits
Came out with little wash cloths and towels;
The animals think we are running a buffet
But even they have given my poems a pass.
Even they have to draw the line someplace.

oceanvu2
Senior Member

since 2007-02-24

Posts 1066
Santa Monica, California, USA

1 posted 2008-06-23 02:43 PM

Charming, whimsical, and odd at the same time: There seems to be something missing in the transition from deer to critters to bunny rabits, but the last two lines just sparkle.

RE: "I’ll have to ask my patient
Elaine to remind me of the plant names."

It is a grounding thought, but still a parenthetical remark, no? Adding what?

"Cut out panty hose" may be "cut off panty hose."

Good to see you feeling cheerful, surrounded by so many nibblers.

Nibbling away, Jimbeaux

Bob K
Member Elite

since 2007-11-03

Posts 4208

2 posted 2008-06-23 03:38 PM

Dear Jim,

          I see what you mean about parenthetical.  I used "patient" in the sense of "abiding" in this case, because Elaine is my wife.  I can see that using the word opens ambiguities in that it could be seen as meaning "client,"
which really would be parenthetical and not a comment on the speaker not using the names of specific plants in the lines before.

     I should probably use some other term of endearment.  Unless you still think the use of "patient" and the whole two line segment is still a distraction.  Then it would probably be better simply to take those two lines out.

     Thoughts?

     Thanks for the comments.  The comments about the transitions were especially helpful.  And I hadn't seen the problem here at all till you pointed it out.  Good eye.

     Gratefully yours,

      Bob K

oceanvu2
Senior Member

since 2007-02-24

Posts 1066
Santa Monica, California, USA

3 posted 2008-06-23 04:33 PM

Hi Bob -- If you think the poem is the same poem without the two lines, you might take them out.

Off the wall thought:  What if another poem were written from Elaine's POV?  A wry companion piece?  Pun intended.

Dumb Zen question:  Why does a partridge cross the road when the car is only two feet away?

Best, Jimbeaux.

Bob K
Member Elite

since 2007-11-03

Posts 4208

4 posted 2008-06-24 04:20 AM

Dear Jim,

          Clearly the partridge wanted to put everything it had into making a striking first impression.

     There is no car, there is no partridge, simply surprise in recalling two brown feathers fluttering into a cornfield outside Solon, Iowa in a November dawn in 1972.  The light was the color of sun seen glowing through a bottle of skim milk, almost frozen, almost too cold to be lifted with bare fingers; white, almost blue.  Too cold to be forgotten.

     Even now it hurts to keep your back straight.

     Sincerely yours, Bob K.

BROTHER JOHN
Member

since 2006-04-06

Posts 386

5 posted 2008-08-02 02:58 PM

Dear Bob,

I am tying in here to reply to your comments on Fire Riders. I like your last two lines of this poem because you did not pass me by being a novice.

You gave me about eight writers to read. These were and are heavy weights.  There is no question that each made his mark.

I looked for metaphors, beats, length of sentences, voice, tone, etc.

I need help in what you are calling voice.  My grammar books and poem construction books  say there are two voices, active and passive.  Are you including in your definition, also, first person, second person and third person?  Many of the poems I read were in first person, like this one of yours. I must admit first person is more personable at times.  Yet, if a person writes all love letters in first person, he or she will soon be looking for someone else to write to.  I see a place for all three.

So many of the writers I read were  modern  authors and most of  their poems are free verse.  That is their choice.  In  some of the poems,  I lost their timing or movement  In fact, a  few times I thought I was reading prose.

John Berryman had an  excellent essay on sonnets.  He said that some modern sonnets have  degenerated  so badly, we only know them because the author says they are sonnets.

I think that a metaphor is misplaced when  an  author said his wife's death was like being swallowed by a vacuum cleaner. I know about existentialism and  its leanings towards
absurdity. We all have a right to  pen our
thoughts and that  includes me.

I think the vacuum cleaner metaphor could be better used.

I liked what Wallace Stevens said,"Poetry is for the sake of life."  We are reared on rhymes, learn prose and  few  in life still remain childlike. It is the childlike who enter the kingdom of creativity. As  I read quantum science,  scientist talk more about creation's beauty that is even seen in a grain of sand, or  a scientific formula.  It hard for me to see  beauty in a dead cat's guts like a poem I just read. But then, beauty is in the mind's eye of the beholder.

By the way, the latest in cosmology and quantum science is not the string theory.  It is the zero energy point and information.  They are claiming that this ties all forces into one.  Well,we wait and see.  This is fascinating.

Thanks for all your time and comments.

My key board is giving problems and I see errors.  Please forgive.

BJ

Gabe
Junior Member

since 2008-08-05

Posts 17

6 posted 2008-08-05 02:49 PM

Bob:

I thought this was very good.  I'm sorry that I don't think I can offer any suggestions that might improve on your poem's wording.  You seem to have a very good ear for sound in poetry and your word choice is excellent.

What I take away from this is that, to the deer, plants are for eating, not for ornamentation.  When you plant plants where deer are inclined to nibble, it would seems surprise would be an odd response.  It would be more surprising to find the deer had left the plants alone.

The ending was interesting, and I think the plants and deer and mice might be metaphors for poems and readers.  Perhaps readers are just nibbling around the edges and not consuming the entire poem?  Or maybe you are unsure whether readers are taking notice of your work?  If they aren't, they should be.

Thank you, Bob.

G

moonbeam

Member Elite

since 2005-12-24

Posts 2356

7 posted 2008-08-08 09:16 AM

Bob

This is a Collinsesque glimpse into homely life, with all his endearing self-effacing style and the cozy confidentialities which lull one into the illusion that the speaker is perhaps leaning on the yard fence having a chat with that next door neighbour, warm coffee cup in hand, breath misting in the early winter air. For me Collins only "hits the spot" when he's at his absolute best, replete with sparkling metaphor and witty little inserts, on the way to a trademark twist in the tail. This poem never quite reaches those heights. The attempts are there: the well used device of anticipation (keeping the reader guessing),  the detail of the Barlow knife, the panty hose and the soap and the quirkily modest close. But prosey poems like this require, in my view, something really special to lift them from the realms of mundane storytelling into a memorable, thought changing experience.  Collins tends towards absolutely original, and often beautiful, imagery, and you approach this in the charmingly observed passage:

“The next door neighbors hung out half a dozen
Cut out panty hose legs, each with a bar
Of Cashmere Bouquet soap, which is supposed
To drive the critters away. It didn't work.
After th first rain, I think the rabbits
Came out with little wash cloths and towels;”

The line ending on  “half a dozen” also works well, maintaining and feeding the reader’s thirst to know what the L1 “them” is.

A couple of small points:

To a UK ear, and possibly from the point of view of smoothness of reading, an “at” inserted into L5, would be worth considering.

Although I had no problem with the reading of “patient” as an adjective rather than a noun I thought the break on the adjective, splitting it from its noun pairing, was gimmicky, and simply exacerbated the probability that readers would read it as Jim did.  Additionally I felt that the whole interjection: [I'll have to ask my patient/Elaine to remind me of the plant names.]  read in a clunky way and seemed  pointless except in so far as it serves to reinforce that the speaker is a doddery old gaffer, forgetting plant names, pottering around, writing poems, forgetfully leaving them on planks.  Collins (sorry to bring him up again!) has the same regrettable habit of suddenly inserting longsuffering wives into perfectly good poems to greater or lesser effect.  In this case I think it’s at the lesser end of the scale, merely interrupting the main story to add artistic verisimilitude where no elaboration is actually needed.

In summary, a pleasant, inoffensive, but ultimately somewhat forgettable read.

M

[This message has been edited by moonbeam (08-08-2008 12:25 PM).]

	⇧ top of page ⇧
All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format.